On the Utility and Use of Marines

[Panag]

hi ,

, thanks Jaybe

man this is cool

have a nice day

[Mad Bomber]

jay:

I see; this region is only a mid priority and your resources are tied up, but you do recognize that you need more carriers. Is this theatre a necessary one? Perhaps a tactical retreat would be in order to preserve your strength until more resources are available to the area.

Interesting mod.... I have done similar mods to the air war

MY goals for these mods are:

1. Make fighters able to conduct "fighter sweeps"
2. Still have the defender of the airspace have a small advantage
3. simulate the change from the pure bomber to the fighter-bomber with the jet age.
4. Increase the lethality and effectiveness of bombardments
5. Have the US have an advantage in air warfare.
6. Increase flexiblility by allowing aircraft to rebase and attack in same turn.


Attack/Defense/Range/ Bombardment/Moves

Fighter 5/4/4/12/2
Jet fighter 10/8/6/16/2 (+2 HP)
Bomber 0/2/12/16/2
F-15 12/10/8/20/2 (+2 HP)
Stealth Fighter 0/4/12/20/2
Stealth Bomber 0/2/35/24/2

interception rates remain as default. All aircraft have lethal bombardment.

[Jaybe]

... All aircraft have lethal bombardment.

We are ALL wierd in our own ways, especially when we are playing single-player!

[Solomwi]

In the spirit of a picture being worth a thousand words, I thought this illustrated a beautiful use for Marines.

The situation is that the Arabs are pretty weak (yet insist on starting a war with me), but slogging up to Mecca (their only city worth taking) with Tanks was still going to take WAY too long (7 turns in a best case scenario) and take a lot of resources. As you can see, Bakr does have Infantry, but he isn't fully upgraded (is the AI ever?). His Infantry units are pretty much all en route to the front line, or fortified in the border cities, meaning an armored push would encounter most, if not all, of them. This in turn most likely means heavy casualties and a whole lot of tanks committed to the advance.

With Marines, though, I was able to sail north for two turns, take Yamama on that second turn, which was considered pretty secure due to location by the AI and only defended by a single Pikeman, and land a Transport full of Tanks behind them. That same turn, the armored division took Mecca that same turn (defense: 1 Inf, 2 Guerilla, 1 Rifle and 1 Pike). So I achieved the same objective in at least five fewer turns, with fewer units and casualties and without having to take on 3-4 more large, unproductive cities and try to keep them from flipping, soaking up even more resources (even if I just sit a couple of units outside each one to retake it in case it does flip). Btw, once I saw the Pikeman in Yamama, I didn't even bother bombarding, and thus was able to take it with Harbor and Marketplace intact, which was crucial to keeping the two cities out of disorder. Bypass the bulk of the enemy's defenses and sieze his capital in one fell swoop... it was sweet.

I have to admit I felt like MacArthur at Inchon .

[Theseus]

Another picture worth a thousand words (and holy sh*t, Solomonwi, the pic in the previous post still overwhelms me!):

We don;t really have such a good Berserk thread ( /me gets thinking...), so I thought I'd post this here.

This is from MZOBC4 (Master Zen Online Boot Camp 4), which I had been playing in the lull before AUSG101.

(And not providing proper DARs for, sorry to all)

This happened to be my third game in a row with Berserks... I really should write up a thread on them, as they are 1) awesome, and 2) a little tricky to use well, in fact.

My big learning has been that they are for RAZING!!

They are not best as the point team in an IC, although that's fine too... if you look at the minimap below, I used them to take down a very defendable peninsula from the Japanese.

But for the most part, keep'em at sea, and open a can'o whupass on everyone while that 6a advantage is going.

Here's the best part: See the redlined Berserk? Look closely to his left as he razes the city!!

[Solomwi]

Excellent, Theseus! I do believe I see a Leader about to die . Man, you don't know how fortuitous it is that you pulled this up when you did. I've been trying to get games going with China, Greece and Rome, and have been getting absolutely disgusted and frustrated with all three (mainly due to having Exp and Sci neighbors). It was good to see one of my most glorious moments again . I'm not sure if the rubble to the north was autorazed or not, but that would have been a wonderful insertion point for some Knights/Cav's to snag Nora and the Ivory that same turn. Of course, if you've got Cavs under those Muskets, you're covered.

I've got to go back and play the Vikings again for those bad boys. It looks like you're using my second favorite amphibious tactic, too (sail along pruning every coastal city the enemy has and let the more conventional forces clean up inside).

Beautiful shot! Amphibious assault may be the most under-rated characteristic of the game.

[Panag]

Originally posted by Solomwi
Excellent, Theseus! I do believe I see a Leader about to die . Man, you don't know how fortuitous it is that you pulled this up when you did. I've been trying to get games going with China, Greece and Rome, and have been getting absolutely disgusted and frustrated with all three (mainly due to having Exp and Sci neighbors). It was good to see one of my most glorious moments again . I'm not sure if the rubble to the north was autorazed or not, but that would have been a wonderful insertion point for some Knights/Cav's to snag Nora and the Ivory that same turn. Of course, if you've got Cavs under those Muskets, you're covered.

I've got to go back and play the Vikings again for those bad boys. It looks like you're using my second favorite amphibious tactic, too (sail along pruning every coastal city the enemy has and let the more conventional forces clean up inside).

Beautiful shot! Amphibious assault may be the most under-rated characteristic of the game.

hi ,

be carefull with that kind of stuff , a while back a guy lost a king unit to a berserker with two HP's ( okay this is a GL , but still )

GL's should be captured and held , in return the civ of the GL should loose culture points or so , .....

anyway , we should at least be able to capture the unit and use it for ourselves , ......

have a nice day

[Solomwi]

GL's should be captured and held , in return the civ of the GL should loose culture points or so , .....

At the most, the capturing civ should be able to decide whether to kill the GL (rep hit, of course) or ransom him back to his native civ. Naturally, though, most of us would hold off such a decision if possible, and keep him captive deep in our own territory, so the ransom would have to be pretty stout.

[Twelvebottoms]

I've used marines for amphibious assault (against England), and why not? It's fun to attack straight off the transport into a city, and hear the mechanical hammering of the M60s. Although in my (newbie) experience a full transport can just barely take a coastal city defended by infantry. Anyway, if it's fun, do it. Even if your marines get cut to ribbons while wading from the transport to the beach.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Wow - thanks for the bump. Had never read this before and it was awesome.

I would be interested to hear what the changed uses of Marines are now with C3C, if any. There have been dramatic changes with far-reaching implications for many other units, and I just wanted to know if anyone has got this far and found any for Marines.

Originally posted by Catt


Okay -- I managed to set up and run a test to determine whether defenders lose their city defense bonuses when facing amphibious assaults. And now, seriously:

In the editor, I configured the human player to start with about 15 settlers, several workers, a pair of explorers, 3 or 4 infantry, 8 marines, 100,000 gold, all technologies discovered, and in a Democracy. Each of the AI civs were given all techs through replaceable parts, a settler, a worker, and an infantry. Infantry was modified so that rubber was not a required resource; transport modified so oil was not a required resource. All combat experience (conscript, regular, veteran and elite) given 10 hit points. Difficulty was set at Regent.

Started game. Selected tiny map, archipelago max water, warm, wet, 5 billion.

Now I just wanted to ask a question here Catt - if you can remember back to this test! Why did you bother actually playing the game for a while like this? In recent tests of mine investigating why Palaces and FPs could get bombarded away, I just added the civ to attack with improvements where I wanted them and population to suit, added military untis for another civ next to the cities, gave this new civ 1000 gold starting treasury and one city in a far-off place. Then I played to test what the Arty would take down in those Great Walled cities.

Is it just that some of those options I (ab)used were not in the editor at the time, or was there some deeper reason for actually setting up your testing situation in-game rather than purely with the ed?

[Catt]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Now I just wanted to ask a question here Catt - if you can remember back to this test! Why did you bother actually playing the game for a while like this?
[. . .]
Is it just that some of those options I (ab)used were not in the editor at the time, [. . .]?

Bingo! The editor of the time didn't allow for placing units, cities, improvements, etc. (though you could modify starting units) so I had to engineer a way to get an AI coastal metropolis, defended by an infantry, without walls, coastal fortress, etc., and all within range of my marines and a transport built from scratch for the test.

I've found it much easier to test most gameplay questions with the current editor .

Catt

[realpolitic]

Fascinating....

I've not used the Marines yet, because of the use of 4 turns. I turn the diplo victory condition off, but Computers are a higher priority. After reading this, I'm going to mod the tech tree so I'll try it. If I like them enough maybe I'll go with the original tree.

[dexters]

Nice to see Catt's classic thread back in action.

Marines are definately much more useful with C3C. Watch out for those AI amphib landings too.

[KenderBane]

There has been only one situation where I have found Marines to be absolutely needed.

When the opponent builds a city on a one or two-space island and there is no other room to land units. I hav seen the AI build cities on a two space island and place a defensive unit on the other space, just to deny an easy landing to an amphibious force.

Other than that kind of situation, I can usually find an undefended beachhead for my tanks and cavalry to land on. So the 'need' for Marines in my games is very small.
(and as a consequence, the utility of them also very small).

[Theseus]

You are missing out on a lotta fun then. Try Berserks to get a taste for the benefits of amphib attacks.

(just don't try to put Marines in a Berserk Army)

[Snotty]

Yes, if you havent played around with amphib before then open up the middle age conquest. Play as a viking tribe, and pillage your heart out.

[Uber Warrior]

Ok lets point something out that has been overlooked.


In D-Day there was a absoloutely massive bombardment before the marines went ashore, no if you do a Amphibious Invasion on Civ3 then use the freaking bombers and Battleships.


Now my experience with marines has always been good, and I have Always done the Marine invasion then land defenders and attackers.


I play world Maps, and thats all I play, I am usually USA with the starting position so I must absoloutely have marines. I use Bombers and Carriers and Battleships and such continuously when I land in cities and it works, so dont count Leathernecks out. They ARE valuable.

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by Uber Warrior
Ok lets point something out that has been overlooked.


In D-Day there was a absoloutely massive bombardment before the marines went ashore, no if you do a Amphibious Invasion on Civ3 then use the freaking bombers and Battleships.


Now my experience with marines has always been good, and I have Always done the Marine invasion then land defenders and attackers.


I play world Maps, and thats all I play, I am usually USA with the starting position so I must absoloutely have marines. I use Bombers and Carriers and Battleships and such continuously when I land in cities and it works, so dont count Leathernecks out. They ARE valuable.

They are valuable, but the marines were not there on D-DAY (although they did have some campaigns in the pacific where they distinguished themselves) Also D-day was a beach invasion; they did not directly attack a heavily defended target such as Cherbourg, Calais, Le Havre, or Dieppe.

[geniemalin]

A couple of points:

(1) the order of error for 2500 tests on a 25% binomial distirbution is about 3/8 of a % {from p(1-p)/sqrt(n)}

(2) It's interesting to me that nobody has really talked much about Marine armies. In my current Viking game I had two Berserk armies loaded into Galleons and a couple of 'extra' Berserks with Pikemen/Musketeers in the third: I would attack straight off with the armies before bombardment. Then if they had more than two defenders we'd have some Frigate/Ironclad bombardment on the remaining (often weaker) defender - only then would the 'single' Berserk/s go in. I never failed to take a coastal city that way.

Especially with four-unit armies courtesy of the Pentagon I can't see why the same sort of tactic wouldn't work with Marine armies (although I haven't yet got to the Modern era in a C3C game, and never really thought much about amphibious assault until I tried the Vikings.)

Unless it loses, an army is not subject to casualties, and it also doesn't allow upgrades in the middle of the assault (so an army can sometimes win where three or four separate attacks wouldn't, because of the defender's extra hp/s) Against a fortified Infantry in a metropolis a three-Marine army has a better than even chance of winning; a four-marine army is almost sure to - even without any bombardment.

Of course, this is all theory extrapolating from my Berserk armies - has anyone used Marine armies extensively in the modern era? (And why the earlier comment 'don't try to put a Marine in a Berserk army'...?)

[MrWhereItsAt]

I thought there was a problem where Berzerk or Marine or maybe mixed Berzerk/Marine armies didn;t have the Marine attacking ability.

Can someone clear this up? What problem exist(s)(ed) for PtW and is it still there for C3C?

[vmxa1]

Mix do not have it. Someone from BreakAway confirmed it was not allowed.

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by geniemalin
A couple of points:
....
(2) It's interesting to me that nobody has really talked much about Marine armies. In my current Viking game I had two Berserk armies loaded into Galleons and a couple of 'extra' Berserks with Pikemen/Musketeers in the third: I would attack straight off with the armies before bombardment. Then if they had more than two defenders we'd have some Frigate/Ironclad bombardment on the remaining (often weaker) defender - only then would the 'single' Berserk/s go in. I never failed to take a coastal city that way.

Especially with four-unit armies courtesy of the Pentagon I can't see why the same sort of tactic wouldn't work with Marine armies (although I haven't yet got to the Modern era in a C3C game, and never really thought much about amphibious assault until I tried the Vikings.)

Unless it loses, an army is not subject to casualties, and it also doesn't allow upgrades in the middle of the assault (so an army can sometimes win where three or four separate attacks wouldn't, because of the defender's extra hp/s) Against a fortified Infantry in a metropolis a three-Marine army has a better than even chance of winning; a four-marine army is almost sure to - even without any bombardment.

Actually, an army can take casulties even if victorious. (just try a triple attack with 3 cav's vs. infantry fortified in a metro) However they can now heal in one turn in a city w/ barracks.

Of course, this is all theory extrapolating from my Berserk armies - has anyone used Marine armies extensively in the modern era? (And why the earlier comment 'don't try to put a Marine in a Berserk army'...?)

As mentioned; mixed armies lose the special abilities, but 4 berserk or 4 marine armies work fine.

[CerberusIV]

I just finished a game where I needed a few small islands to secure a domination win. To try something different I used 4x marine armies with preliminary bomber attacks. The opposition wasn't much, just two infantry or riflemen in each target city, so it is hard to judge how this would work against a better defended target.

Marine armies are very strong with the combat bonuses. I would go as far as to say I would not bother with marines that aren't in a army. They were happily flattening regular infantry and losing maybe 1HP in the process.

Bombers having LLB is a big difference. Even with a single carrier load a good RNG would damage one defending unit and kill the other. Out of 7 cities taken bombers killed one of the two defenders in 3 cases.

To follow up I chose to helicopter in TOW infantry to garrison rather than drag transports full of MI across the map.

[Hot_Enamel]

Thought I might share this one....

Firstly though, I would like to say that I am in two PBEM's with Tibi. In both games, we have been at war, flamed each other, argued, traded, and also become good friends. I have the utmost respect for him, and he has proven to me on more than one occasion, to be an exceptional Civ player whom I greatly respect.

Tibi has graciously agreed to allow me to post these pics. As this PBEM is still ongoing, military numbers will not be provided. But pics as you know, are worth a thousand words.

DON PBEM.
Flandrien : China (Long since destroyed and absorbed into the Arabian Empire)
Hot_Enamel : Arabia
Tiberius : Egypt (Tibi took over from jshelr in March 03)
Imtroops : Carthage.

End of the industrial age
The PBEM has been going for over 12 months. (Since December 2002)

All three remaining players have/had a chance of winning the game.
A minor WW1 erupted when Tibi & Imtoops trade embargoed me in the middle ages.
Militarily, it was a non-event, with just a lot of chest thumping and a few minor units being destroyed.
We agreed to peace and an end to the trade embargo, when I sneaked in a Great Library build and got the following techs for free:
Education
Printing Press
Music Theory
Banking
Astronomy
Democracy
Economics

That caught me up in tech, and with some helpful final trades, I had tech parity again.

I have a complete map of the world. I believe my territory is still unknown, so the pics have been modified to protect the innocent (me).

Given the embargo, the ease of which my opponents trade luxuries & strategic resources, and their ROP, I am increasingly of the belief, that they have a long term alliance which will never give me an opportunity to win the game.
I felt my only chance was to deal both, or at least one of them, a fatal blow.

Investigations of border cities in the middle ages clearly showed that I had no chance of breaking through Tibi's front line defences. Plus he always had a stronger military compared to me. After reading this thread, I decided a surprise marine invasion would be my best chance.

I started moving stacks of empty transports along Tibi's border, so that he would get "used to" seeing my ships as just a non-threatening annoyance.

I quickly studied amphibious warfare and had a number of Marine prebuilds ready.
Although the plan was to get enough marines to attack both of my opponents at the same time, I did not have enough transports in position, and was worried that if I waited too long, I would lose my chance of surprise.


I snuck a stack of marines and cavalry on 4 transports and moved them into position.
I was hoping for two things.
1. Tibi would not be concerned about the stack of transports..they had been up, down and around his coast a few times.
2. He has forgotten that I have the Magellan's Wonder giving my ships get an extra movement. Therefore he would incorrectly believe that Asyut was safe from any invasion.



I had luck with the RNG....and was successful in taking the coastal city of Asyut.
My cav poured in, and wreaked havoc within his undefended core.



Cities taken/destoyed were
Size 9, Asyrut,
Size 13, Heliopolis, The Great Wall, JS Bach's Cathedral
Size 15, Thebes, Palace Capital, Shakespeare's Theatre, Oracle, Copernicus Observatory.
Size 14, Memphis
Size 13, Elephantine, Sistine Chapel
Size 7, Buto
Size 8, Busiris
Size 8, El-Ashmunein
Size 12, Alexandria
Size 14, Byblos
Size13, Hieraconpolis
Size12, Edfu
Size13, New Thebes

As a bonus, he also lost access to two luxuries.


Note however... not everything went as planned.
New Thebes must of produced an infantry unit on the turn I invaded.
I lost a lot of cavalry trying to take that city.
I could of bypassed it , and taken many more cities, but it was a core city, and I wanted it destroyed.

The second thing I really did wrong, was that I miscalculated how many cavalry I had left.
I counted more units sitting in Asyut that I had. They were actually leftover marines, not cavalry.
My last cavalry took New Thebes, and I didnt have any units left to take and destroy Size 16 Pi-Ramesses which also contained the Hoover Wonder.
I was stupid to leave that city and wonder still standing....all I needed was one more cavalry.

The third thing that has since gone wrong... is that (as half expected) Imtoops has allied with Tibi against me, and WWII has errupted.
2 vs 1 in the late industrial/modern age is very scary....bring on the tanks.


And in conclusion.... here is the pic, after I disbanded every city...leaving poor Tibi with a doughnut.



Finally, I would like to point out, that this manoeuvre has only just occurred. This PBEM is still continuing, and I am facing/faced two huge SOD's at the Arabian Border.

Hot_Enamel of the besieged (and very sneaky) Arabia


PS...
When trying to replay my moves for the above pics, I got different results.
The Marine attack against Asyut was identical, but the offensive against New Thebes had different results.
The first time I replayed, I did not take New Thebes
The second time I replayed, (Taking cities in the same order but with different units Cavalry/Ansar) I ended up taking New Thebes and still had units left over.

Anyway...in the real game, my last unit available took New Thebes.
So that I could take the pics, I stopped the 2nd replay at that point.

[geniemalin]

That is .... just beautiful to witness.

From a fan of amphibious warfare, thank you for sharing!

[vulture]

Now that's a fun trick to pull. Love to see a shot of the powergraph the turn following this stunt...

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by vulture
Now that's a fun trick to pull. Love to see a shot of the powergraph the turn following this stunt...

I didn't find it that fun. Actually I almost had a heart attack when I opened the save.

But the move was brilliant.

Btw, this:

and he has proven to me on more than one occasion, to be an exceptional Civ player

is clearly an exxageration.

[Theseus]

Mindbogglingly great move!!

[Catt]

Thanks to Tiberius, Imtroops, and Hot_Enamel for sharing such a great in-game manuver! Fascinating and horrifying at the same time!

Catt

[Arrian]

Holy ****.

That's... evil. Good show, H_E. I feel your pain, Tiberius (hope you pay him back).

-Arrian